


All Joys are Due to Thee

by circ_bamboo



Series: Imputed Grace [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Multi, Queer Het, Rimming, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:31:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin Barry finds herself falling in love -- real, actual love -- with Chris Pike and Number One. (Set immediately after the events in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/147343">Where My Hand Is Set</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Joys are Due to Thee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MyBloodyUnicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyBloodyUnicorn/gifts).



> No, literally, it starts the morning after [Where My Hand Is Set (My Soul Shall Be)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/147343). I don't think it'll make any sense without the previous story.
> 
> I wrote the first story for [boosette](http://archiveofourown.org/users/boosette/gifts) and then started this one before I'd even posted the first. Then I sat on it for three _years_ , until [MyBloodyUnicorn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MyBloodyUnicorn) commented on it and reminded me that I could, you know, finish it. 
> 
> I described it to my beta ([imachar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imachar/pseuds/imachar), thanks so much!) as "12K of feelings and smut and 1K of plot," so consider yourself warned.
> 
> Title from Donne's [Elegy XX ("To His Mistress Going To Bed")](http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/elegy20.htm) again, because I am pretentious and also lazy.

Cait woke up for the second time that morning when she heard a muttered, "Shit!" She disentangled herself from the arms around her--right, Number One's, and holy crap, she'd freak out about that in a few minutes when she was properly awake--to see Chris Pike, her erstwhile CO and, as of that night, lover, sitting at the end of the bed, holding on to his shin.

One mumbled something unintelligible and pulled Cait's pillow into her arms. Cait shrugged, tucked the blanket around her, and went to the end of the bed, sitting next to Chris. "You okay?" she asked quietly.

"I'm fine," he said. "Apparently not terribly coordinated yet this morning. How are you?"

"I'm great," she said, smiling.

"Yes, you are," he said, smiling back. "I'm going to shower. Want to join me?"

"What about--" She tipped her head back, indicating the sleeping Number One, who had curled around the pillow and pulled her knees into her body. _God, she's so amazing._

"Well," Chris said, “I have to go on shift in less than two hours and you two don't. You can join her afterwards."

He looked so hopeful that Cait gave a soft laugh and stood. "All right. Only because it's a water shower, you know." She returned to the head of the bed and kissed One lightly on the cheek. "Sweetheart, we're going to shower now. You can keep sleeping."

"Okay," One sighed. "Come back when you're done."

"Always," Cait said, and bit her lip. One's breathing evened out again, and Chris was heading towards the shower, so maybe they didn't notice her slip. She caught up with him easily--the room wasn't that big--and filled her hands with his rear end before he got all the way into the bathroom.

He jumped, not much, and twisted around to look at her. "Get in here," he said, and she did, the door closing behind them.

It was the work of a couple minutes to get the shower on and at a temperature they could both stand--turned out they both liked being boiled to death, which was useful. The shower stall wasn't very big, certainly not actually big enough for two adult humans, but they made do.

And it wasn't as if she didn't want to touch him, anyway.

There were two bottles of shower gel on the small shelf; one was citrus-scented, and the other smelled of cinnamon and cloves. She could hazard a guess as to which was whose, but Cait sniffed each to be sure. They both smelled suspiciously familiar, and she looked up at Chris. "You know she uses yours occasionally." She was almost never close enough to Chris to smell his shower gel, but she'd definitely smelled both the citrus and the spicy scents on One in the past few weeks.

"That's fine," he said, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. "I use hers."

"Oh, my God, the two of you are nauseating," Cait said, trying to cover the stab of pain in her chest.

Unfortunately, as she'd noted before, Chris wasn't actually stupid, and he saw or heard something that made him shake his head. "The _three_ of us are nauseating," he corrected her. "Which one do you want?"

It felt vaguely like there was an important choice being made, so she said, "Half of each."

"Diplomatic," he said, and dumped a small glob of each kind of gel into his hands before directing her under the spray. Once her hair was thoroughly wet, he massaged the gel through her curls, scratching her scalp lightly.

Her hair was so thick that it took a second half-and-half handful to wash her body. He started at her shoulders, rubbing gently, and made his way down to her breasts. He soaped them up with particular care, and she gasped and giggled.

He paid the same care to pretty much every single inch of her body, especially between her legs and the globes of her ass. She gasped a few more times, and eventually couldn't stand it. "God, come here," she said.

"I've told you more than once: it's Chris," he said, but willingly closed the mere inches between them.

She laughed again, and rubbed her soapy breasts against him. His chest hair rasped against her nipples, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a kiss.

He kissed as if she were the only person in the world that he ever wanted to kiss, and she appreciated the illusion, if nothing else. A moment later, she pulled away. "Let me wash you," she said, and he kissed her nose.

She got a handful of cinnamon and clove-scented shower gel and scrubbed through his short hair, scratching behind his ears and causing him to close his eyes in pleasure. "Mmm, don't stop," he said, his voice low.

“I love it when you sound like this,” she said, finding his nipples under the lather and hair. She hadn’t really had time to explore his body the night before, and damn, it was _fine_. “One of these nights, it’s going to be you doing the talking, not me.”

“Fine with me,” he said, his lips by her ear.

“Turn around,” she said.

He did, saying, “Are you always this bossy?”

“Only with people who need it,” she replied and stroked her hands, still covered in soap suds, from his shoulders down to his rear. He chuckled, and she relented. “I don’t mind topping or bottoming,” she said. “It’s just that, well, you and One seemed to need someone else directing.”

“I won’t deny it,” he said, turning to face her. “But you know you’re not just a catalyst.”

She kissed him so she didn’t have to say anything. Fortunately it distracted him, and a moment or two later, when they broke apart, he said, “Did you mean it, about the strap-on?”

“I never lie about strap-ons,” she said, mock-offended, and he laughed. “Why, did you want to watch me with One, or did you want it for yourself?”

“Yes,” he said promptly, and it was her turn to laugh. “What do you want?” he asked.

“You know that desk of yours?” she said, tipping her head towards his room.

“Oh, my God,” Cait said, breathing just a bit faster. “I think you might be kinkier than I am.”

He smiled at her. “I doubt it,” he said. “I’d guess we’re pretty evenly matched. You want to bend me over my desk and ride me hard; I want to have my face buried in One’s cunt while you’re doing it.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she whimpered. “Turn around.”

He did, resting his hands on the wall. She directed the spray to rinse the suds off his back and ass, and then ran a hand down his spine. Leaning in close, she smelled the cinnamon and cloves on his skin and darted her tongue out to taste. She licked a rivulet of water off his neck, and slid her hands down his ribs as she slid her mouth down his backbone, biting gently.

When she reached his rear end, she stood and rubbed her fingers gently along the cleft there until she touched his opening. He shuddered, and she said, “Is this all right?”

“God, yes,” he said, pressing back against her fingers.

“Mmm, good,” she said. “Spread ‘em.” She nudged his ankles with one foot, and he obligingly moved his feet. Kneeling carefully, she used her thumbs to spread his ass before dragging her tongue over his entrance.

He groaned at the mere touch of her tongue, and she smiled briefly before diving in. He tasted clean, thanks to the shower, and she could still smell the shower gel as she licked and nibbled gently. It only took a couple minutes before he was squirming against her and saying all sorts of things in that dark voice of his. “Cait, oh, God, do you know what you’re doing to me?”

She lifted her mouth from his skin only long enough to say, “Touch yourself.”

Although she couldn’t see it, his balance shifted, and she felt the muscles in his left side ripple rhythmically. A couple minutes later, he said, “Cait, I’m gonna—“ 

She squeezed his ass encouragingly, and a few seconds later, he gasped, stiffened, and shuddered. “Oh, damn,” he said weakly, and Cait gave him a last lick before standing and turning him to her.

He moved to kiss her, but she dodged his lips. “I was just eating out your ass,” she pointed out, and he laughed and kissed her neck.

“Your turn?” he asked, sliding his fingers down her hip.

“Nah,” she said. “You have a job to do, and I’m just going to dive back into bed with our girlfriend.”

He shook against her for a moment, and she realized he was laughing. “I know,” she said. “’Girlfriend’ just isn’t the right word.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said.

They helped each other rinse and dry off, and Cait dug through their shared medicine cabinet before she found a container of aloe vera gel, complete with label from Sickbay. She had an identical tub in her own bathroom, so she knew it was actually just pure aloe vera gel, synthesized, and she dumped some in her hand.

Once she’d smeared the gel through her hair and thoroughly brushed her teeth with a spare toothbrush she’d found in the cabinet as well, she kissed Chris on the lips and said, “Time to go.”

They left the bathroom, to see One leaning against the headboard of the bed, reading a padd, fortunately still nude. “Good morning,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“So far,” Chris said, smiling as he went to the bureau and removed fresh clothing.

Cait sat on the edge of the bed, and One set the padd down and folded back the covers, patting the mattress. Quirking an eyebrow, Cait slid in next to One and pressed against her side.

“So the question is,” Cait said, “do we get started now and make him jealous, or do we watch him get dressed like a reverse strip show?”

“We’re smart people,” One said. “I think we can do both.”

Cait laughed, and turned on her side, spooning against One, who curled around Cait’s back and propped herself up to watch Chris.

Who dressed with standard efficiency, completely ignoring the women watching him.

“Aww,” Cait said, as he settled his tunic into place. “Couldn’t you have made that last a _little_ longer?”

“I could have,” he said, “but I’d like to make it over to the bridge on time.”

“Spoilsport,” Cait said, and One laughed.

He crossed over to the bed in a few quick strides, kissed both of them thoroughly, and said, “I’m already going to be distracted thinking of both of you in here without me. I’m really trying not to make it worse.”

Cait immediately flashed him her breasts, and they all laughed.

When he left, a few minutes later, Cait turned to One, and said, “Well, what now?”

“Sure you can’t think of something?” One said, and disappeared under the covers.

* * *

Chris came back to his quarters late after his shift, bringing food, and several hours and orgasms later, Cait finally put her wrinkled uniform back on and returned to her own quarters. Fortunately, she didn’t run into anyone on the way, but she did find a handful of messages waiting for her.

The two most interesting were from Phil Boyce: _Cait, are you okay? Chris just walked in with that particular look on his face that means he just got laid, and I was pretty sure you and One were barely going to wait to get into the turbolift before you jumped each other, and . . . Well, call me if you need anything._

The second message, from only a half hour or so later, was _Okay, apparently I had nothing to worry about. Next time, you might want to remember to tell the computer not to tell anyone where you are. Hope everything is going well. No, I don’t want details._

“Oh, shit,” Cait said out loud. Well, she’d remember next time. There really weren’t that many people who would bother to ask where she was at any given point in time. She sent back a quick textcomm to Boyce ( _Yes, everything is going very well._ ) and went to take a shower before she—

Wait, was she sleeping here, or in Chris’s room? Or was she supposed to leave Chris and One alone, since she’d had nearly all day with One herself? She paused, holding her tunic in one hand. It was really unfair that she wasn’t on the same floor as Chris and One, but it did make logical sense to put the chief engineer a little closer to Engineering.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the doorframe. God, she so wanted to be back with them, wanted to be in a naked, sweaty pile with all three of them in Chris’s bed, even if they actually just slept this time. She’d never been in a threesome that lasted more than one memorable night, so she wasn’t sure what the protocol was in this situation. Especially since she was, despite all assurances to the contrary, still the fifth wheel.

But—she sighed, and shuddered briefly with a full-body sensory memory, of Chris’s mouth on her breasts and One’s head barely visible between her thighs. When it passed, she shucked off the rest of her clothing and hopped into the sonic shower again. _What the hell am I doing?_

She had no answers.

Changing into pajamas, she slid into bed, picked up her blinking comm unit, and found a message from Boyce. _Be safe. If you break Chris’s heart, I’ll kill you, but if he or One breaks your heart, I’ll kill them._

_Wow._ She swallowed, and blinked back tears. She’d known him for, what, two months now? _Thanks. That’s sweet. In a homicidal sort of way._

_Where are you?_ It took her a moment to realize that this textcomm was from One, not Phil.

_In my room,_ she sent back. _You know. Where good little engineers go to sleep._

_Oh._ A few seconds later, she got another textcomm from One. _You should be here._

Oh, god, she was a pushover. _Be there in a minute._ She changed into a uniform to wear tomorrow, threw her pajamas back onto her bed, and ordered the computer to keep her location as in her room to anyone under the rank of lieutenant commander. It balked, because Cait herself was only a lieutenant, but she used the chief engineer override and it obeyed.

Less than five minutes later, she was back in Chris’s room, and a minute after that, she was nude and sandwiched between Chris and One again. “We actually need to get sleep this time,” Cait said with a yawn.

“Mm-hm,” Chris said, and tucked Cait into his chest. “Sleep.”

“Yeah, all right,” she said, pulled One’s arm into a more comfortable position on her waist, and closed her eyes.

* * *

She woke the next morning because Chris was trying to slip out of the bed again. “If you want to do that every morning,” she said, “you shouldn’t sleep next to the wall.”

He chuckled. “It’s true,” he said. “Scoot.”

Cait scooted and prodded One until she moved, and Chris managed to get out of the bed relatively intact, or at least without banging his shin again. “Isn’t One on alpha shift today?” Cait asked, watching Chris stretch.

“Not for an hour and a half yet,” One muttered into the pillow. “He gets up too early.”

“It’s true,” Cait said, and yawned.

Chris chuckled again. “I like breakfast.” He headed for the bathroom, but stopped and turned back. “I know you’re on beta, but you’re coming back here to sleep, right?”

“Just say yes,” One said, “and we can go back to sleep right _now_.”

“We want you here every night,” Chris said.

Cait swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “I mean—I’m not sure—some nights I might want to stretch out.” It was too early in the morning; she couldn’t think of a good reason—or, well, any reason—to say no.

“Well, some days we’re all on different shifts,” Chris said. “And now, I’m going to shower. You two occupy yourselves.”

“By _sleeping_ ,” One said, and rolled over to bury her face in Cait’s shoulder.

Cait just sighed.

* * *

Cait got on shift at 1600, taking over from Patil, who barely noticed that she was there at all. He had his head bent over a terminal, typing away at lines of code, a pile of padds near his elbow, and he waved at her, distracted, when she said hello.

“Is he okay?” she asked one of the ensigns, who was actually watching the levels on the dilithium chambers. “Shouldn’t he be going off shift?”

Ensign Mif shrugged. “He’s fine, sir,” she said. “He’s on a coding binge. It’s probably better that he stays here, because at least we can keep an eye on him.”

“Oh,” Cait said. While she did her own share of coding, she was a mechanic more than anything. She’d known programmers like Patil over the years, though. “Well, make sure he’s fed and watered, or something.”

“He’s been on the ship for a couple years now, sir,” Mif said. “We’re used to it.” The ensign smiled, as if to bring Cait in on the joke.

Cait smiled back. “Now, I got the notification that Engineering applied the patch to keep out the Cambrians while I was out. You headed that up, right?”

Mif nodded and brought up the log file.

When Patil was still there a couple hours later, Cait gave into her temptation and went to look over his shoulder. “What are you working on, Lieutenant?”

Patil started and blinked at her. “Um,” he said. “It’s just an upgrade to one part of the dilithium power transfer module, sir.”

“Didn’t the ‘Fleet send one of those out last week?” she asked.

“Well, yes,” he said, “but I didn’t like it. Sir.”

“Didn’t _like_ it?”

“To be completely honest, sir, I don’t know who wrote it, but it’s completely inelegant and at least twice as long as it needs to be.” Patil flushed and looked down at his hands. “We did run the upgrade, though—I thought I heard you mention it to Ensign Mif. I’m not making that mistake twice.”

Cait laughed gently. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “And I’ve noticed that the scripts tend to a bit on the redundant side. I’m not surprised you can make them prettier. I assume you’ll be running it in a simulation before you request to run it?”

“Of course, sir.” He looked vaguely affronted.

“Oh, I meant I’d like to be there when you run it,” she said. “Not because I don’t trust you but because I want to watch it happen.”

“Oh,” Patil said. “Well, um, of course, sir. But, um, it’s a script. If it runs correctly, nothing will happen.”

“Fine by me.”

“Okay.” Patil gave her a strange look and then a smile. Cait smiled back.

* * *

_I need to take you on a date._

The private comm message flashed on her padd as Cait scanned through the schematics for the engines on one of the shuttles that had been acting up. Chris had sent it; he was off-shift but Cait was still on and it was a personal matter, so she ignored it for the moment. In a couple of hours, she’d see him, and they could discuss it then.

She grabbed a quick dinner when she went off shift and picked up another batch of clothing from her own quarters. Looking around for a moment, she sighed—the first time she was ever senior enough to warrant her own quarters and here she was, voluntarily giving them up to share a double-sized bed with two other people. Oh well.

When she got to the bedroom Chris and One were both awake, tapping away on padds while seated next to each other in the bed. “Hello,” One said, and stood to kiss Cait. “Come join us.”

“You never responded to my message,” Chris said, patting the bed beside him.

Cait stripped off a layer or two of clothing, pulled on a sleep shirt, and crawled into bed. “Well, I figured we see each other all the time, so why do we need dates?”

One raised an eyebrow. “Why did we need a date before we slept together?” she asked, climbing back into bed.

“Well, that’s different,” Cait said, although she couldn’t think of a single reason as to why. It just was.

“Also, the date he suggested is just for the two of you.”

“It was her idea,” Chris said at Cait’s alarmed look. “Really, does the idea of spending an hour alone with me over dinner cause that much distress?”

“No, I just—“ Cait sighed. “Okay. A date.” She slanted a glance at One. “If it’s okay with you.”

“It’s fine,” One said. “I’ll get my own date later.”

“Ah.” Cait rested her head on One’s shoulder as One set her padd aside and picked up Chris’s free hand. “Okay.”

* * *

“Haven’t seen you out and about much recently,” Phil said as he turned to Cait, holding the dermal regenerator.

“I’ve been busy,” she said. “I have a job, you know.”

“Apparently getting yourself plasma burns is part of that job.”

“The stupid shuttle still has a buggy engine,” she said. “I was trying to fix it.”

“Seriously,” he said, “stop moving. I thought we were friends. The dermal regen isn’t painful. Hold still.”

“Whether or not we’re friends has nothing to do with the fact that you’re regenerating skin on my _ass_.”

“Which is why we’re in a private room.” He paused a moment, and then said, “So, how are things going?”

“Things, or specific things? Because _things_ are going fine but I’m not talking about specific things.”

“That almost made sense,” he said.

Cait laughed. “Yeah, I realized that before I even got done saying it.”

“So?”

“So I like this ship, I like being the chief engineer, my assistant hates the way that the wonks at Starfleet Engineering code, and I’m okay with that.”

“And you and Chris have a date without One tomorrow.”

Cait twisted around to look at Phil. “Well, if you already knew, why do you bother asking?”

Phil rolled his eyes. “I’m offering you an opportunity to talk about it to an uninvolved party.”

“Uninvolved, my ass.”

“No, I’d say your ass is definitely involved.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” She turned back to rest her head on her arms again and ignored him as hard as she could.

“Well, if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me.”

Cait bit her lip. “You’re a manipulative jerk,” she said a minute or two later.

“I know,” Phil said, and she could hear the smirk.

“Not right now. Maybe later?”

“Like I said, you know where to find me.”

* * *

It was only two hours later—after they’d both gone off shift—that Cait found herself standing in front of Phil’s door. “Hi,” she said when his door slid open. “Got a minute?”

“Sure,” he said, gesturing her in with only a little bit of a smirk.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said a few minutes later, drink in hand.

“Who does?” Phil said, settling into his chair.

“No, I mean—“ She sighed. “This—“ She made a triangle with her index fingers and thumbs. “—is fundamentally not the same as this.” She folded her index fingers back into her hands, leaving her thumbs out. “Or something.”

Phil snickered.

“Yeah, okay, it was a stupid attempt at an illustration, but—“ Cait sighed again, and took a bigger gulp than necessary of her martini. “Wow, that’s strong. Tasty, though. Anyway. Yeah. Stuff.”

“Well, I don’t have any good advice on how to balance all the different relationships in a threesome, Cait.”

“Why, haven’t you been in one?” she asked with her own smirk.

“No, and even if I had, it certainly wasn’t with Chris and One.”

“I know,” she said. “I suppose it’s mostly trial and error, but the errors seem so costly since it’s the first officer and the _captain_.”

“And the chief engineer,” he said.

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“I don’t suppose it does, but remember that you’re important, too.”

“I know. It’s—the first thing I wanted was them to be happy, and I really do, but it’s still difficult to believe that ‘happy’ involves _me_. Especially for him.” She bit her lip.

“So you’re mostly worried about Chris.”

“No. Well, yes. Well, maybe. I just—he’s—“ She stopped and thought a moment. “I don’t understand him yet.”

“You can fix that,” Phil said. “You know, by talking to him.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not going to be fast, and I’m impatient.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about that, either.”

“Yes, you can,” she said, holding out her empty glass, and he laughed.

* * *

Cait was still slightly tipsy—well, all right, maybe more than ‘slightly’—as she made her way back to the bedroom. One was sitting in bed, reading on a padd. “Where’s Chris?” Cait asked.

“Gym,” One said.

“At—“ Cait looked around for a chrono on the wall or something, but there wasn’t one. “—At this hour?”

One grinned. “He’s on gamma staring tomorrow. I think he’s trying to mess up his sleep cycle enough that it won’t matter.”

“Oh,” Cait said. “Well, that’s going to stink, one of us on each shift. I didn’t think of that.”

“Yeah,” One said. “I suppose each of the dyads will get some one-on-one time.”

“I guess so,” Cait said. She sat on the chair, unzipped her boots, and set them aside. “Are you okay with this?”

“Some one-on-one time with you? Yes,” One said.

“You know what I mean. I think.” Cait rolled her eyes and stripped her dress over her head. “Ugh. It’s braless o’clock.”

One chuckled. “I haven’t heard you call it that in years.”

“I think it’s just plain clothingless o’clock.”

“I very much support that,” One said, and set her padd aside. “Come here.”

Cait finished stripping off her underwear, tripped over one of her boots, and face-planted straight into One’s cleavage. “Oh, my god, I have to stop drinking with Phil,” she said.

“Don’t do that on my account,” One said, and helped Cait into a more comfortable position, head on a pillow in her lap.

“No, I mean, like, me and Chris. Without you. That’s okay with you?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?” One said. She threaded her fingers through Cait’s hair and started to rub her scalp.

“I don’t know,” Cait said. It was difficult to think; she’d been a little tired before she’d started drinking, and now she was warm and One was giving her a head massage and she was wrapped around her side.

“Are you okay with Chris and me without you?”

“Well, yeah,” Cait said, “but that makes sense.”

“And so does Chris and you without me.”

“It does?”

“It does,” One said, voice warm. “Do you need something to drink?”

“No; Phil made me drink water. I’m good.”

“Then go to sleep.”

“Aren’t you the one on alpha shift?” Cait said, but if One had any response to that, she didn’t hear it.

* * *

Cait woke up several hours later with a cottony mouth and ringing in her ears, which made her bury her head under a pillow. It didn’t help, of course, so she rolled over and blinked at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Chris said. “Are we still on for 1200?”

She raised her head enough to see him sitting at his desk, chair turned to face her. “I think? I make terrible life choices.” She lowered her head back to the pillow and groaned.

“I hope you meant Phil’s martinis and not lunch-slash-dinner with me.”

“You know I did,” she said.

“Well, I thought so,” Chris said, “having had a few myself.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost 1000.”

“Did you even sleep?” she asked.

“Some,” he said. “I’ll sleep during beta. I’m fine, though. Lucid, can touch my finger to my nose, the whole nine yards.” He demonstrated, arms outstretched.

“Heh,” she said. “Can you bring me some water?”

“Sure.” He stood, disappeared into the bathroom, and came back with a reusable bottle filled with water.

Cait sat up, pulling the sheet over her breasts, and drank about half of the water in one gulp. She patted the edge of the bed and Chris sat. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like I got my ass burned off by a plasma engine and then went drinking with an asshole who makes all his drinks double-strength.”

“That asshole,” he said, mock-affronted, “happens to be my best friend, but yeah, he’s definitely an asshole. You want pain pills, or do you want me to go steal a hypo from him?”

“Pain pills are fine,” she said, and he handed her the bottle he’d apparently also grabbed in the bathroom. She swallowed down a couple and handed the pills back. “Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” He set the bottle down on the bedside table. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. Well, probably a shower. I’ll be fine in about a half hour,” she said. “Where are we, um, going?”

“Observation Deck B,” he said. “Don’t worry; I’ve got everything organized.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s good.”

It was tempting just to burrow back under the covers, and maybe even pull Chris in after her, but Cait didn’t. She used the water shower again but barred him from the room while she was in there and just stood under the spray until her head stopped pounding and she wasn’t feeling quite so nauseated.

She escaped back to her quarters and dug through her closet until she found appropriate date-wear—again, what exactly did one wear on a date with one’s CO? Five outfits later she ended up in a little black dress, long enough to look classy, cut low enough in front to be sexy, and heels. She debated jewelry for a few minutes, ending up with a thin gold chain and earrings. Her foundation was sheer; she didn’t bother with the thick stuff that hid her freckles, and she stuck to natural shades of eye shadow and lip gloss.

Chris was already in Observation Deck B when Cait got there; he had on a medium-gray suit with blue and white pinstripes, a white shirt, and a darker blue tie with a subtle pattern. “You look lovely,” he said, turning and smiling at her.

“Thank you,” she said. “So do you. Do you get to wear civilian suits often?”

“Not often,” he said. “I’ve only got two, and the second is because Phil said he was sick of seeing me in the same suit and tie every single time we had to wear one. Would you like something to drink? I’ve got wine, plus, of course, everything normally available.”

“Wine, please,” she said. “What kind?”

Chris blinked. “I have no idea,” he said. He went to the sideboard and picked up the bottle. “Um, Chateau Picard? Well, that’s the vineyard. Uh. Malbec?”

Cait laughed gently. “Not a wine guy, I see.” She joined him and took the bottle from his hands. “Yes, it’s a malbec, and this wine is about five years old. That was a good year.”

“You know French wines?”

“Most Terran, some Andorian, a couple other planets,” she said. She picked up the bottle opener, jabbed the needle into the cork, and hit the button. “It’s red; it should breathe a bit. I’ll take a glass of water until dinner.”

“I’m impressed.” He put a hand on her waist and reached past her to pour a glass of water.

“My parents like wine,” she said, accepting the glass. “Yours apparently don’t.”

“They didn’t drink around me when I was a kid, and I left at seventeen and rarely went back.” He shrugged. “They might. I wouldn’t know. Everything I know about alcohol—the good stuff, not the crap we drank at the academy—I know from Phil.”

“Oh, good lord,” Cait said. “My family’s good Boston Irish. I think I got watered-down whiskey in a bottle. I suppose French wine isn’t very traditional, but alcohol is alcohol.” She didn’t touch the part about not seeing his parents after he left for school; he could bring it up again if he wanted to talk about it.

He chuckled. “So you’re from Boston?”

“Just outside,” she said. “Didn’t you read my file?”

“I did,” he said, “but it’s usually considered polite to pretend I didn’t.” He smiled at her again, fine lines crinkling the skin by his eyes.

“Newton,” she said. “It’s near where 90 and 95 meet, and that doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it?”

He shook his head. “Outside Boston, you say. What do your parents do?”

“My dad’s a professor; mom works for the Federation, in the local office in the city.”

“Harvard?”

Cait snorted. “No. He teaches at Wellesley. Wanted me to go there, but I got early admission at the academy and disappeared to the other end of the continent. I think he wanted me to go into politics. I said no thank you.”

“And yet here you are as a chief engineer on a ship,” Chris said.

“I like fixing things,” she said. “What about you? California, right?”

He nodded. “My dad, well, you know he’s in the ‘fleet. My mother’s a professor. We stayed mostly in the Bay area when I was young but there’s a family ranch out in Mojave.”

“A ranch in the desert?” she said.

“Well, we don’t actually ranch anything anymore, but yes.”

“Huh,” she said. “What’s it like?”

“Hot. Austere. Beautiful.” He was about to say more, she could tell, but a chime sounded at the door and he went to get the food. 

It came on two trays on a rolling cart, delivered by his yeoman. Cait raised an eyebrow after Yeoman Colt left, and Chris said, “When she saw me the morning after the first time, she said, ‘Oh, thank God, finally.’ I think it’s all right if she knows.”

It was on the tip of Cait’s tongue to ask, _All three of us?_ but she didn’t. She chuckled, though, as Chris set the trays on the table and took off the covers.

“I asked One what you like to eat,” he said. “She said you like Bajoran food, but obviously don’t get it very often. So it’s _asnor_ fish and decapus salad, with something I’ve forgotten on the side.”

“A droli,” Cait said, eyes wide as she leaned over to look more carefully. “Oh, my goodness. I haven’t had any of this since—shoot, since the Academy. She remembered that?”

“Of course she did,” he said. He pulled the chair out for her and gestured to it.

“Oh, you are too cute,” she said as she sat.

He had some sort of Southeast Asian Terran food, mostly noodles and odd vegetables, and they ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. “Is the food good?” he asked.

“Very,” she said. “Do you want to try any?”

“I’d love to, if you can bear to part with any of it,” he said.

She twisted her lips to the side. “Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but we can try.”

He laughed, and she loaded a fork and held it out for him. Instead of taking it from her fingers, though, he leaned over and ate the bite straight off the fork. “Mm,” he said. “Spicier than I expected. What’s in there? Wait—you know, I probably won’t know if you told me.”

“Probably not,” she said. “I’m not even sure what’s in it.”

“Do you like spicy food?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Well, honestly, I like most food. Here, try this.” She ripped off a piece of the biscuit-like droli and held it out.

Most likely she should have expected that he’d take it from her with his mouth again, but she hadn’t, and it sent a line of heat up her arm. She brushed her fingertips over his cheek before he sat up, but said, “Stop being sexy. Isn’t the point of this date to talk or something?”

“We could definitely ‘or something’—“

Cait sighed. “I should have expected that.”

Chris shrugged. “Probably.”

She looked down at their respective plates, mostly empty, and then at the two slices of cheesecake sitting to one side. “All right,” she said. “Tell me something not irrelevant about yourself, and you get a bite of cheesecake. Things I probably don’t know already,” she added. “It’s okay if One knows them. She probably hasn’t told me.”

“All right,” he said. “Well. I might as well go for the good stuff. I have an ex-fiancee, Janeese. She left me while she was at the Academy and I was out on a ship, about—oh, wow, ten years ago now? Anyway, she apparently fell in love with one of her instructors and that was that.”

“Oh,” Cait said. She grabbed the point of one of the slices with a fork and held it out to him. “I’m sorry,” she said, not entirely sure how to respond, since he sounded so matter-of-fact.

“Like I said, it’s been a while,” he said, and leaned over to eat the cheesecake bite. “Ahh, peach amaretto. I haven’t thought about her in years, and I’m certainly not in love with her anymore. It doesn’t hurt; it’s just . . . something that happened. Your turn.”

“Um.” She thought for a moment, and said, “You’re the first man I’ve slept with in about eight years.”

“Thanks?” he said with a grin, and fed her a bite of cheesecake. “Off men for a while?”

“Usually,” she said. “I mean, men were always a sometimes thing for me. Don’t get me wrong: you’re fucking _fantastic_ in the sack and I love every minute of it, but I think my overall record is something like two dozen women and five men, including you.” It was her turn to shrug. “I like eating pussy; what can I say?”

“Me too,” he said. “Oh, god, yes.” His gaze unfocused for a moment. “Anyway. Thank you; you are also fucking fantastic in bed. I suppose it’s my turn again.” He paused. “My dad’s an autocratic asshole. I think you already know this but the relevant piece of information here is that I know it, and we don’t talk much. You would think,” he said bitterly, “that he’d really have nothing to complain about regarding my life and career choices, but you’d be wrong.”

Cait nodded, and held out a bit of cheesecake. He took it, and then said, “Come over here. Please? Or I could go over there but I’m heavier than you are and it would be more comfortable for you to sit on my lap than vice versa.”

“Hands over the dress,” she said, half-joking as she stood, rounded the corner of the table, and then perched on his knee. She was too tall to do anything other than rest her cheek on the top of his head, but he wrapped his arms around her and, well, _relaxed_.

“You have no idea what I could do without moving your dress an inch,” he said, but he didn’t try to prove it, only held her.

They finished the cheesecake, trading tidbits of personal information. She heard about some of his most miserable missions, and in turn told him about hers; she got a little more about his relationship with his parents and talked about hers with her sister. By the end, they’d migrated over to the couch and were stretched out along its length. Cait had both her hands buried in his hair, as short as it was, and one of his was under her and the other was working its way up her skirt.

“Hey,” she said. “This date wasn’t supposed to be about sex, I don’t think.”

“I’m the one who asked you,” he said, “so don’t I get to set the expectations? You’re right, though; it was supposed to be an opportunity to talk, since we don’t see each other the way One and I do, and we don’t have the history that you and One do.” He chuckled. “On the other hand, I think we’ve shared enough for now, and we’ve still got a couple hours before you go on shift, so . . .” His fingertip traced the hem of her underwear.

“You make a good point,” she said, and surrendered to the inevitable.

Afterward, while they were still lying on the couch, clothing strewn across the floor that they’d have to collect in a moment, Cait opened her mouth to say something, and realized she didn’t know what to say. Instead she kissed his ear and just held on for another few minutes.

* * *

_So? How did it go?_

_Isn’t he there? Can’t you ask him? I’m busy._

_He’s asleep. Also, it would defeat the purpose of finding out how you thought the date went if I asked him._

_That’s fair._

_So?_

_The food was amazing; good recommendation, by the way. We talked about some stuff. Then there was sex. The end._

_But are you any more comfortable with him when you’re not actively engaged in sex? (Also I’d like more details on that, please.)_

_What makes you think I’m uncomfortable with him? (When I’m not at work, maybe.)_

_Oh, I don’t know; the way you make it obvious that you still think we’re going to leave you and be obnoxiously monogamous or something._

Cait stared down at the screen of her padd. She didn’t really have anything to say to that, because it was _true_ , and any response she really wanted to give would start a fight. The only thing she could do was block all personal textcomms and save that discussion for later, which was what she did.

* * *

As luck would have it, One was asleep, curled up alone in the bed, when Cait got back to the room. She woke up when Cait slid into bed with her, but only woke up enough to say, “You still owe me details on the sex.”

“Later,” Cait said, and One fell back asleep.

She was saved again, so to speak, by a red alert; that lasted for a couple days, and by the end everyone was subsisting on adrenaline and energy boosters alone. Chris—well, Captain Pike—ordered everyone to stand down and ran the ship on a skeleton crew for the following forty-eight hours.

She was pretty sure that One hadn’t forgotten, though; sometimes the XO looked at her as if she wanted to say something, but held back.

* * *

A couple days passed, and then a week, and then it had been six full weeks since they’d started, well, sleeping together. Cait stared at the date on her planner and shook her head. It was . . . good.

More than good, really.

The sex was _amazing_ , of course, whether it was two or all three of them. Cait never felt, while they were fucking, as if she were extra in any way. And, really, if she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she never felt that way while they _weren’t_ fucking.

But then again, it hadn’t been very long yet. 

She’d been on two One-free dates with Chris since the first one, and two with One but not Chris, and they’d all gone extremely well. They’d mostly ended in sex, naturally, but there had been talking before that, usually, catching up on the dozen years she’d missed with One and the highlights of Chris’s life and Starfleet career.

Now that she looked back on it, clearly one of two things had to be true: she was correct, and One and Chris would ride off into the sunset and have ridiculously-perfect babies together; or One and Chris were correct, and this might work out. And between those two, all the evidence appeared to support the latter.

She blinked and shook her head. No. There were other options, and she just couldn’t think of them this moment. Besides, she had no desire to stake too much on the idea that a _threesome_ could work out, her initial encouragement to One aside.

_But if it did,_ the little voice in the back of her head said, _it would be so, so good._

* * *

A couple weeks later, Cait was moving from beta to gamma shift, since unfortunately being chief engineer didn’t actually mean she got to pick her schedule. She hadn't quite convinced herself to sleep on the appropriate schedule, which was her only excuse for zoning out as she stared over Patil's shoulder as he ran one of his amended code updates. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“I said everything appears to be fine, except—Wait."

“Wait?”

“Something's happening,” he said, and the lights on the console flickered as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Shit. There's a back door. How did I miss that? _Fuck_. Sorry, sir.”

“Swear all you need to if it means you can fix it,” Cait said, and watched him page through lines of code.

“Hell,” Patil said, and moved the cursor down to a particular line before highlighting it. “That isn't hashmarked out, it's—" He copied the line, flipped to another screen, and pasted it into a new document. “That's fucking Cambrian lettering. I don't know how long that's been sitting there—”

The screen lit up blue before it exploded, and Cait flew across the room before hitting her head on something and blacking out.

She awakened a few minutes later, her head and one ankle throbbing; she thought the latter was broken and wasn't sure about her head because everything was dark. Blinking a few times, she tried to clear her vision, but it wasn't working, and her heart rate climbed before she realized it was because she was in a closet.

“Shh,” someone said in her ear, and Cait stiffened. “It's Ensign Mif, sir.”

“What's going on?” Cait hissed.

“I don't exactly know, sir, but Lieutenant Patil and Ensign Carson are in here with us, as well, and we're pretty sure that the Cambrian raiders came back.”

“It's my fault,” Patil said; despite the whisper, Cait was fairly sure he had his head buried in his hands. “I didn't notice the false characters concealing a back door until it had already let in the virus.”

She faintly remembered something about that. “How do we fix it?”

“I doubt they're still flammable, sir,” Ensign Carson said. “Assuming they are the Cambrians, they're wearing very different gear.”

“Shit,” Cait said. She was having a little trouble thinking past the pain, although her head was clear otherwise and she thanked whoever was listening that she wasn't concussed. “No other weak spots?”

“Not that we know of, sir,” Carson said. “None physical, at least.”

“How about computer weak spots? Can you exploit the back door they left in our programming?”

“I don't know,” Patil said after a brief hesitation. “But I don't have a padd or anything to try.”

“I hid one in here,” Mif said, and she stood, one knee almost hitting Cait in the face. “Here,” she said when she sat back down. “There's a direct wire port on the back of the closet, behind a false panel. I had that installed after the last attack. Here's the cord.”

“I could kiss you right now,” Patil said, taking the padd and the cord and plugging in.

“Maybe later,” Mif said with a chuckle, and Cait groaned.

They heard a crash come from outside the closet, and Cait shot up, despite the pain. “I'm going out there,” she said.

“Sir, you really shouldn't,” Mif said.

“One of us is Chief Engineer, and it's not you,” Cait said. She struggled in the tight space to get to her feet, and then remembered her ankle. “Ow. Okay, maybe you've got a point,” she said.

“I'll go,” Carson said.

“None of us is going,” Cait said, her mind going a mile a minute. There had to be something they could do to save Engineering and the ship, other than wait for Patil to pull a miracle out of his—

“I'm in,” he said.

“What?”

“I, uh. I write programs?” he said, sounding very sheepish. “I test security in my spare time, both for the ship and for the Federation generally. So I had a bunch of code saved to a very secure database and I—”

“Okay, great,” Cait said, interrupting him. “Now what?”

“I don't know, sir. It is in fact the Cambrians, I've got that much.”

“The transporters,” Mif said.

“Yes,” Patil said. “Yes, that's it.”

The light coming off the padd was just enough to see his fingers flying over the screen, and he swiped one finger up the screen. From outside the closet, Cait heard an enraged shout, and then—nothing.

“They should be gone,” Patil said. “No more life signatures out there, and only the four of us were in this part of Engineering.”

Cait reached up and pushed; the door opened, and the four of them fell out. Carson helped Cait stand as she looked around; the room was about half trashed, but at least nothing was actively on fire. There were some scorch marks near one wall, but mostly it was upended chairs and consoles sparking where they'd been smashed.

Patil immediately made a beeline for an intact terminal. “I need to close that door permanently,” he said, typing again.

“Engineering to Bridge,” Cait said, and Mif helped her to a nearby chair.

“They can't hear you,” Carson said; she'd gone to another terminal. “The ship is on red alert. We're still disconnected, but I'm fixing it as fast as I can.”

“Red alert?”

“They appear to be attacking the Cambrian raiders' ship, sir,” Mif said; she was holding Patil's padd, the cord trailing beside it.

The ship shuddered. “Shields are holding,” Mif reported.

Cait squeezed her eyes shut. Whoever was in secondary Engineering would be handling the engine and shields and all the stuff that should be hers when the ship was under attack, and it was getting more and more difficult for her to sit there and not do anything.

“We're connected,” Carson said. “Communications should be working with the rest of the ship now, sir.”

“Engineering to Bridge,” Cait said, as the Red Alert lights and sirens started.

“Oh, thank God, you're alive,” Pike's voice said. “Hold on.”

“Acknowledged, sir,” Cait said. Her hands were shaking, and she balled them into fists.

The ship shuddered again. “Shields are still holding, sir.”

The console nearest to Cait wasn't punched out; she hit a button to see if it was working and found that it was. A quick command brought up the messages screen, and she watched the ship report that they had fired photon torpedos. The wait to see if they'd hit the other ship, and what might come of that, was perhaps only a second, but it felt like forever, and Cait nearly missed Patil saying, “Closed! Gotcha, you fuckers.”

“The Cambrian ship was hit, but it went to warp and is gone now, sir,” Mif said, and Cait read the same thing on her own screen.

“Good.” She looked up at Patil, and he was punching the air. “What did you do?”

“Closed the back door and left a fun surprise in their system,” he said. “Don't worry, it's completely legal, but their transporters won't work until they undo it, and that's going to take some time.” He was grinning broadly, and Cait shook her head.

“Send a copy to the Federation,” she said, “and to me.”

“The Federation already knows about it, sir,” Patil said, a little chastened. “I wrote it for a class at the Academy. But I'll show you anyway.”

“Good,” she said. “We might have to get retroactive approval, but I think it'll be fine.”

The Red Alert sirens and lights died out, and Pike's voice came over the intercom again. “The Cambrian ship is gone. We'll be at Yellow Alert until we're sure they aren't coming back. Departments, alter your rosters accordingly.”

“Engineering acknowledges,” Cait said, and slumped in her chair. “Barry to Engineering Secondary.”

“Hly here. Good to have you back, sir.”

“Hly, the four of us are going to Sickbay. Send a cleanup crew and at least one person to take over for me.”

“Acknowledged, sir. Hly out.”

“Sir,” Mif said, “none of us was injured. Only you.”

Cait looked at the other three, who all nodded. “Well, you shouldn't be on shift anymore, anyway.”

“I'd rather help with the cleanup,” Carson said, “if that's okay, sir.”

“I actually have to finish some coding on our end, sir,” Patil said, patting his terminal.

Cait looked at Mif. “Well, you have to help me to Sickbay, then.”

Mif nodded, set the padd down, and moved over to Cait's side.

“Good work, all of you,” Cait said as she stood with Mif's help. “Patil, you especially. We'll try the amended code upgrade later, okay?”

“Thank you, sir,” Patil said.

“Go off shift at the normal time, all right? You deserve some sleep.”

Cait was pretty sure she heard Patil mutter, “Sleep is for the week,” as she left, but she didn't acknowledge it.

* * *

“You’re fine,” Phil said, closing his tricorder. “Go home; get some rest.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or don’t.”

Cait shook her head. “I need sleep. Preferably now, and preferably in a bed.”

“I can keep you here if you think you won’t get it otherwise,” he offered.

She gave him a dirty look, and he laughed. “Do you want me to send someone back with you, or call someone to go with you?”

She shook her head again. “I’ll be fine. I’m not even dizzy and nothing hurts anymore.” He'd given her a hypo for the pain, and it had kicked in almost right away.

“Okay. Don’t even try to report for work for forty-eight hours, and if anything changes, come back or call me. The hypo should last at least a day, and you can have another one when you need it.” 

“Thanks.”

“It's my job. I'm glad you're okay, though.”

“Me too.” He patted her on the shoulder as she left Medical.

Her gait was still a tad uneven because even though she knew Phil had fixed her ankle, in her head it was still broken. There was something terribly repetitive about leaving medical and going to One and Chris's floor, although of course it was different without One there. Hopefully One would be in Chris’s quarters. Or Chris; she didn’t really care, but if someone was there it would be nice.

Damn, she needed sleep, even if her nerves were jangling like an out-of-tune guitar.

The door slid open ahead of her and barely a step inside stood Chris, looking worried and relieved at the same time. She heard the doors close behind her, and half a second later he’d wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in against his chest, one hand behind her head.

Her vision blurred and she sniffed, and his arms tightened around her. “Cait, oh, my God,” he said. “You—You’re okay, right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Tired. Really tired. Where’s Number One?”

“She’s still on the bridge, waiting for Spock to come take over. I pulled rank on her. I’m not proud of it—she should be here—but I had to—“ He took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. “I was falling apart and she wasn’t, so I ran.”

“Oh,” Cait said, and pulled away just enough to look up at him. He was right _there_ , so close, eyes so gray—and the look on his face was so—and somehow it was _different_ , just in that moment, because finally she realized that she felt no differently about him than she did about One. Well, differently because he was a different person, but certainly no _less_. _Oh._

She cleared her throat and looked away for a moment. “I broke my ankle and hit my head; Phil fixed both. There’s nothing wrong with me that a good twelve hours of sleep won’t fix.” She yawned, even though the sparks under her skin were still there, making her itch in an incorporeal way.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Let’s do that. Do you want a shower first?”

“Yeah,” she said, realizing that she felt grimy from head to toe. “Ugh.”

He helped her out of her clothing—not that she really needed the help—and into the shower, hovering outside until she told him to sit. “I’m tired. No actual head injury. I can manage to wash myself.”

“All right,” he said, and sat on the sink.

The itching finally disappeared as the hot water cascaded over her skin, and she had to put a hand on the wall at one point to keep herself upright. He held out a towel for her as she stepped out of the shower, and handed her underwear and a sleep shirt after she dried off. She nodded off as he finger-combed gel into her hair for her, and woke up enough for him to tuck her into bed and then climb in with her. “Cait,” he breathed in her ear, just before she drifted off again. “I hope you know what you mean to me.”

She blinked, and rolled over enough to say, “I do now. And—“ She looked away. “Um, consider it returned.”

He chuckled and leaned in to kiss her, briefly but warmly. “It’s nice to know you’re bad at this part, too.”

“Very bad,” Cait said, and if he responded to that, she didn’t hear it.

She woke up some time later when One finally made it back. “…slowest Vulcan on record.”

“Did you tell him it was an emergency?” Chris’s voice rumbled from behind her.

“Well, no,” One admitted. “Is she awake?”

“No,” Cait mumbled into her pillow.

“Okay,” One said. She sounded absolutely composed, but when she joined them in the bed a moment later—or, at least, a moment by Cait’s perception—and pulled Cait into her arms, she was shaking. “Cait, I—“

“I know,” Cait said, interrupting. And then, because she was at least three-quarters asleep, she added, “I love you too.”

A moment passed in a weird, electric silence, and Cait’s brain caught up enough to realize what she’d said. “Fuck it,” she said. “Love you too, Chris; you love me, we both love One, who loves both of us; can I fall back to sleep without any more revelations?”

“Yes,” One said.

So Cait did.

* * *

Consciousness came back slowly the next morning—or, really, probably the next afternoon by Federation Standard timing. Cait was first aware that she was warm, and then that she had definitely had enough sleep, and next that she wasn’t alone in bed. Well, that wasn’t unusual, and neither was waking up to hear One and Chris talking quietly. “When she wakes up,” Chris was saying, “I can go grab food, and then maybe . . .”

“Maybe what?” One asked, her tone warm and amused.

Chris didn’t answer, or at least not in words, and she heard them kissing over her head. It made her smile, but she hid it in the pillow.

They’d moved during the night, or the time that she had been asleep. If Cait wasn’t mistaken, she was currently lying with her had in One’s lap on a pillow, and the hand on her hip was Chris’s. “A scone,” she said, still without opening her eyes. “One of those awful, super-sweet things that a proper English person turns her nose up at, because they’re not in the least authentic. Preferably with some sort of berries, especially raspberries or blackberries. Oh, and coffee. Cream, no sugar.”

“Well, you’ve got your marching orders,” One said.

“It’s 1500,” Chris said. “What are the odds of them having any scones in the mess?”

Cait opened her eyes. “What’s the use of being captain if you can’t make them make scones for you?”

“They wouldn’t be for _me_ ,” he pointed out, but smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” she said. “And you?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “A little hungry.”

“You could fix that.”

“I could,” he said. “A kiss before I go?”

Cait rolled onto her back, flipped the covers down, and raised her arms. Chris leaned down and touched his lips to hers, gently.

Yeah, she was having none of that. She put one hand on the back of his head, pulled him in, and opened her mouth. He made a small noise in the back of his throat and leaned in a little farther.

Still not close enough, in her mind. She reached up with one leg, kicking the covers to the side, and wrapped her foot around his hip, pulling him in until he lost his balance and fell full-length on top of her—exactly where she wanted him.

Of course, it was Chris, so he immediately pulled back and said, “Did I hurt you?” 

“No,” she said, “of course not. Now kiss me like you _mean_ it.”

“All right,” he said, and did, kissing her slow and hot and dirty and _everything_ she wanted right at that moment. She threaded her fingers through his hair, hitched her other leg up around him, and _oh_ , held him against her, the blanket trapped between them barely muting the warmth of his body.

He groaned but pulled away a few heated minutes later, pressing a last kiss to her forehead. “I have to stop here,” he said, “or you’ll never get your scone.”

“I do want my scone,” Cait said, laughing, and patted his ass as he rolled out of bed. “Don’t forget the coffee, too.”

Chris shook his head and pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. “I won’t. Back in a few minutes.” 

He left, and Cait looked up at One, who was leaning against the wall. “How are you?” she asked.

“A little hot under the collar,” One said, a small smile on her face. “So. Chris pulled rank on me to get the hell of the bridge and go make sure you were okay.”

Cait winced. “Yeah, uh, he mentioned that. Are you and he, um, okay, I guess?” She sat up and went to join One against the wall, leaning on her shoulder until One raised her arm and put it around Cait.

One nodded. “We talked while you were asleep about how he is not going to do that again,” she said, “and about how we apparently need to talk about what we’re supposed to do when any one of us is in trouble. But we don’t need to discuss that right now.”

“What should we talk about instead?” Cait asked. “What we’re going to do once I’ve got some food in me?” As if on cue, her stomach rumbled, and they both laughed.

“That can wait, too,” One said, rubbing her cheek against the top of Cait’s head. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Cait said, half reflexively, and felt herself turning red. It was still a little awkward, but she’d loved One for so long without ever putting a word to it that it almost _wasn’t_ weird.

“And you love Chris.”

That _was_ weird, and Cait said as much. “At least, it’s weird to me right now. But yeah, I do.”

“Why is it weird?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just is.” She put a hand on One’s waist. “Do we have to talk about it?”

“No,” One said, sounding warm and amused. “We don’t have to talk about anything. But I’m happy.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Cait asked, although the answer was probably obvious.

“I love both of you,” One said. “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t love each other.”

“You have good taste,” Cait said, and One’s chest shook briefly with laughter.

“Seriously, though,” One said, “I was worried, and I’m glad you’re safe. I wish I’d been there with you.”

“I had Patil and Mif and Carson,” Cait said. “We turned out okay.”

“Mmm,” One said. “Still.”

“Yeah, I know.” Cait clenched her fingers in One’s shirt and took a deep breath.

Chris returned a few minutes later with a tray holding three scones, a couple of sandwiches, and three mugs, and Cait had a brief moment of disbelief that the captain of the _Yorktown_ would bring her breakfast. It passed, though, and she scarfed down the blackberry scone with a sigh of contentment. “Perfect,” she said.

“How's your ankle?” One asked.

Cait flexed it while she sipped at her coffee, and shrugged. “Fine. Still feels a little weird. You know, the way it usually does after an osteoregen, but I'm sure I don't have to worry about it.”

“That's good,” One said, and her fingers raised to trace parallel lines just above Cait's knee. She'd eaten about half her sandwich before setting the plate aside. Chris hadn't done much better, and Cait thought about eating their leftovers, but realized she wasn't that hungry.

Or, well, not that hungry for food.

Chris stood to put the tray outside the door, and when he got back to the side of the bed, Cait said, “Stop right there.”

“Why?” he asked.

In lieu of answering, Cait knelt on the bed, grabbed the hem of Chris’s shirt, and pulled it over his head. Flinging it to one side, she ignored it in favor of undoing his fly. “Ugh, you’re wearing pants. Why are you wearing pants?” she said.

“Because you wanted a scone,” he said, and she looked up and glared at him. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s clearly my fault that I didn’t strip again once I got back.”

“Yes,” Cait said. She felt One’s fingers slide under her shirt from behind and said, “Yes, keep that up.”

“Okay,” One said in her ear.

Chris hadn’t bothered with underwear, which was always a pleasant surprise, and Cait pushed his pants over his hips and down to the floor as quickly as she could. She pressed a kiss to the skin just above his navel as he stepped out of the pile of fabric, and traced lines over his abdomen, ending with her thumbs stroking down the inside of his thighs.

He gasped and shuddered; he hadn’t been hard when she started undressing him, but he was about halfway there by the time she licked the ridge that rode over his hipbone. Between the taste of Chris’s skin and One’s hands, splayed out along her ribs just under her breasts, Cait was flying high, and wanted—she wanted—

Actually, she had no idea what she wanted. Chris was _right there_ and yes, she wanted to suck him, but she also wanted him inside her, and One’s fingers were dipping below the waistband on her underwear, and she wanted that, too. And she wanted to watch both of them come, but—

Chris’s fingers touched her face, and he tipped her head up gently to look at him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Too many choices,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, and looked over her shoulder. A moment later his gaze flicked back down and he said, “Let us take care of you? Please?”

“Okay,” she breathed, and closed her eyes. 

Two sets of hands removed her shirt, gently; two sets of hands helped her lie back on the bed, head on a pillow. One set—Chris’s, obviously—stroked her hair and face as the other slid her underwear down her legs and then off. She relaxed into his touch as he rubbed behind her ears and along her hairline, lifting her head briefly so he could rub the back of her neck.

One, on the other hand, started with her feet, pressing firmly along the arches where Cait was ticklish and touching gently around her recently-broken ankle. Soon after, Cait felt a tongue flicking along her ankle bone, and then fingers tracing lines along the tendons in her neck. “Mmm,” she said, and it turned into a moan as Chris’s lips touched the hollow of her throat. 

She felt One lick a line up the front of her shin, and then lift her leg to kiss a line up the back, skipping the ticklish spot directly behind her knee to concentrate on the sensitive spots to the sides. Chris’s fingertips skated lightly over her collarbone, and his mouth followed. She could feel the faintest edge of rasp from his stubble; could hear it too, just barely over the sounds of licking and sucking and kissing.

She lifted a hand, wanted to touch someone, probably Chris as he was within her reach, but he caught her wrist gently and lowered it back to the bed. “You can move,” he said, voice rich and heated, “but you don’t need to touch us right now.”

Cait thought about protesting but realized she really, really didn’t want to. “Okay,” she said.

By then, One had made it up to her thighs, teasing delicate lines over her skin, a tiny bit higher each time but still well shy of where Cait wanted her. She groaned, and that was when one of Chris’s palms brushed over her nipple, almost as if by accident.

It wasn’t an accident, because he did it again a moment later, and she let out her breath in a long, shuddery sigh. She lost track of Chris’s hands for a moment when One bit the inside of her thigh, perhaps halfway between her knee and hip, and then lost track of One’s mouth when Chris sucked one nipple into his mouth.

From there, it seemed to be a competition between the two of them: who could get her to make the most noises, who could get her to break. One’s fingers traced the hollow at the very top of the inside of her thigh at the same time that Chris’s tongue swirled circles around her nipples; Chris’s hand cupped her breast and kneaded gently while One kissed a line down from her navel.

And then One, of course, played her trump card and brushed a finger once, twice over Cait’s labia before stroking between, before finding the wetness there and spreading it around with a few lush circles. “Oh,” Cait said. “Oh, _yes_ please.”

“Please, what?” Chris asked, and God, she loved his voice, especially when he was turned on and started sounding like he was made to narrate a porn holovid.

But she responded, even though it was difficult to pull herself together enough to form words. “Please, One, don’t stop there, keep touching me,” she said.

One chuckled, and said, “My fingers or my tongue?”

Her voice had gone all low and throaty as well, and Cait couldn’t even—it was as if she was in an auditory dream come true, as well as having two people doing their damndest to make her feel good at the same time. “Can I have both?” she said.

“Of course,” One said, and lowered her head, locks of dark brown hair falling down to brush at Cait's skin. She pushed them back impatiently, and Chris reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a hairtie.

One smiled at him and used it to pull her hair back quickly; it was such a prosaic scene, so domestic, that Cait could do nothing about the smile that spread across her own face.

She closed her eyes as One bent down again; a slight zing went through her when One's mouth met her cunt and leftover adrenaline from the last few hours only made it better. She gasped and arched her back; Chris lowered his head and took her breast into his mouth again, and it was exactly what she wanted.

One's tongue circled Cait's clit, and then she exchanged it for her fingers, rubbing small circles as she pressed her tongue inside Cait. It was the opposite of what Cait had expected, but perfect nonetheless; her hips bucked a little, and One used her spare hand to still them.

“Want me to hold her down?” Chris asked One, who shook her head, ears brushing Cait's thighs, and went back to her task.

“I can be good,” Cait said; she reached for Chris's hands, and he took hers in his, big and warm and faintly callused.

“We know you can be good,” he said, “but you don't _have_ to.” He moved, swinging one leg to the other side of her so she was in his lap. His cock was hard, and she could feel it between her shoulder blades, but she ignored it in favor of sinking into the feeling of One's tongue inside her and One's long, clever fingers bringing her closer and closer to orgasm.

The first one hit her like a train, the last few levels of buildup falling almost on top of each other, and she shuddered in Chris's arms. Before she'd even really finished, One pushed two fingers inside her and curled them, tongue moving to her clit, and Cait found herself shoved off the precipice of a _second_ orgasm.

“Oh, wow,” she said on a sigh once she was back to herself; One looked unbearably pleased with herself, and Cait really didn't blame her. “Come up here,” she said, and One did, sliding her fingers out of Cait.

As One settled herself on Cait's right, Chris grabbed One's hand and sucked her fingers; Cait didn't even really have it in her to groan at the moment, so she just closed her eyes and hummed a little.

“Are you done?” Chris asked, a couple minutes later.

Cait opened her eyes. “You mean, done for the night? No,” she said. She felt loose, muscles lax with pleasure, but there were three people in the bed and it wouldn't be nice to hoard all the orgasms for herself. Unless . . . “You?”

He shifted under her and she could feel that he was still hard, but that didn't necessarily guarantee that he wanted to do anything else. “I wouldn't mind getting off,” he said, “but I'm not terribly picky as to how.”

“One should ride you,” Cait said.

“Yes,” Chris said. “Yes, she should.”

“I am very much in approval,” One said.

A little rearrangement—actually, rather a lot of rearrangement—and Chris was on his back; Cait was curled up on his right, where One had been, and One was kneeling over him. “Are you ready?” Chris asked.

One snorted. “Am I ready, he asks.” She reached down and steadied his cock before sliding onto it in one swift movement. Her lips parted in a soft 'oh,' and she closed her eyes for a second and swallowed before speaking. “I've been on the edge since before Cait even came.”

“Well, then,” Chris said, his voice strained despite the evenness of his words, “go for it.”

She did, using muscular thighs to raise and lower herself; Cait watched her legs for a moment before reaching out a tentative hand and resting it on One's hip. The muscles moving smoothly under her skin felt even better than they looked, and Cait kept her hand there for a long moment before moving her hand to Chris's abdominal muscles.

She enjoyed the rhythmic contracting for a moment before sliding her fingers around the base of Chris's cock. His groan was satisfying, and Cait squeezed a little before letting go. 

Sitting up a little bit, she angled herself so she could see both their faces as well as where they were joined, and her breath caught in her throat. They were luminously beautiful, both of them, even with Chris's hair stuck to his forehead and One's ponytail coming undone and bouncing all over the place. It was almost unreal that she, Caitlin Barry, was in bed with both of them, and that they _wanted_ her there, wanted her watching, wanted her participating.

But then Chris looked up at her, and One turned to her as well, and she couldn't do anything but smile.

Chris smiled back first, his expression full of sweetness and, yes, love: she would put a name to it now. One's smile came a beat later, but not because of less feeling; Cait figured it out when One put both hands on the mattress and strained against Chris for a few thrusts. She gave a wordless cry and came, tremors shooting through her frame.

Chris's smile slipped as he groaned; his hands dropped to One's hips, and he thrust up into her a few times before falling over the edge himself. Cait watched in wonder, and when One rolled off of Chris to sandwich herself between him and Cait, she pressed her lips to One's temple. “I love you,” she said. “Both of you.”

“We love you too,” Chris said, words coming out between still-ragged gasps. “Please say you believe us now.”

“Yes,” Cait said without hesitation, which surprised her at first, but she said it again, “Yes. I believe you.”

One pulled them both down into a messy, awkward three-way kiss, all of them still a little orgasm-drunk, and it was nothing she'd ever known to want but everything she'd hoped for.


End file.
